Elizabeth Bear


Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky is an American author who works primarily in speculative fiction genres, writing under the name Elizabeth Bear. She won the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Tideline", and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Shoggoths in Bloom". She is one of a small number of writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
WWW elizabethbear.com𝕏 matociquala

Life and career

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Bear studied English and anthropology at the University of Connecticut but did not graduate. She worked as a technical writer, stable hand, reporter and held various office jobs. She sold a few stories in the 1990s and began writing seriously in 2001.
Bear's first novel, Hammered, was published in January 2005 and was followed by Scardown in July and Worldwired in November of the same year. The trilogy features Canadian Master Warrant Officer Jenny Casey, who is also the main character in the short story "Gone to Flowers". Hammered won the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 2006.
The Chains That You Refuse, a collection of her short fiction, was published May 2006 by Night Shade Books. Blood and Iron, the first book in the fantasy series entitled The Promethean Age, debuted June 27, 2006. She is also a coauthor of the ongoing Shadow Unit website/pseudo-TV series.
In 2008, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.
She is an instructor at the Viable Paradise writer's workshop and has taught at Clarion West Writers Workshop.
The opening quote in Criminal Minds episode "Lauren" (6.18) was a direct quote of the second and third lines of Bear's book Seven for a Secret: "The secret to lying is to believe with all your heart. That goes for lying to yourself even more than lying to another."
She is one of the regular panelists on podcast SF Squeecast, which won the 2012 and 2013 Hugo Awards for Best Fancast.
Bear married novelist Scott Lynch in October 2016.
In 2021, Bear announced that she had been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

Novels

Carnival Undertow Bone and Jewel Creatures The Cobbler's Boy
;The Jenny Casey trilogyHammered Scardown Worldwired
;The Promethean AgeBlood and Iron Whiskey and Water
  • The Stratford Man:
  • * Volume I: Ink and Steel
  • * Volume II: Hell and Earth One Eyed Jack
;Jacob's Ladder trilogyDust Chill Grail
;The Edda of BurdensAll the Windwracked Stars By the Mountain Bound The Sea thy Mistress
;The Iskryne seriesA Companion to Wolves, co-written with Sarah Monette The Tempering of Men, co-written with Sarah Monette An Apprentice to Elves, co-written with Sarah Monette
;New Amsterdam seriesNew Amsterdam Seven for a Secret The White City Ad Eternum Garrett Investigates
;Eternal Sky TrilogyRange of Ghosts Shattered Pillars Steles of the Sky
;The Lotus KingdomsThe Stone in the Skull The Red-Stained Wings The Origin of Storms
;Karen MemoryKaren Memory Stone Mad Angel Maker
;White SpaceAncestral Night Machine
  • ''The Folded Sky''

Short fiction

;CollectionsThe Chains That You Refuse Jewels and Stones Shoggoths in Bloom The Best of Elizabeth Bear
;Short storiesLove-In-Idleness The Company of Four Speak! Tiger! Tiger! Ice The Chains That You Refuse This Tragic Glass Old Leatherwings Seven Dragons Mountains Sleeping Dogs Lie When You Visit the Magoebaskloof Hotel, Be Certain Not to Miss the Samango Monkeys Los Empujadores Furiosos The House of the Rising Sun Wax Two Dreams on Trains Follow Me Light & Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Botticelli And the Deep Blue Sea Long Cold Day The Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide King Gone to Flowers High Iron Wane Love Among the Talus L'Esprit d'Escalier: Not a Play in One Act Lucifugous Schrödinger's Cat Chases the Super String The Ile of Dogges The Cold Blacksmith Sounding The Devil You Don't Stella Nova Limerent Orm the Beautiful The Something-Dreaming Game War Stories Cryptic Coloration Tideline Black Is the Color The Rest of Your Life in a Day Inelastic Collisions The Ladies Abjure the Realm Annie Webber Boojum Hobnoblin Blues Shoggoths in Bloom Your Collar Sonny Liston Takes the Fall The Red in the Sky Is Our Blood The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder Snow Dragons Mongoose Formidable Terrain Cuckoo Swell The Horrid Glory of Its Wings Dolly The Romance Gods of the Forge The Leavings of the Wolf King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree Needles The Salt Sea and the Sky ad eternum The Slaughtered Lamb Faster Gun Form and Void The Wreck of the "Charles Dexter Ward The Death of Terrestrial Radio The Deeps of the Sky No Decent Patrimony The Governess Book of Iron NovellaThe Hand is Quicker No Place to Dream, but a Place to Die You've Never Seen Everything Madam Damnable's Sewing Circle Covenant In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns This Chance Planet Terrior The Bone WarThe Heart's Filthy Lesson In Libres Margin of Survival And the Balance in Blood Skin in the Game What Someone Else Does Not Want Printed Perfect Gun The King's Evil No Work of Mine She Still Loves the Dragon Okay, Glory We Have Always Died in the Castle
  • Bug's A-Life Particulates Deriving Life Lest We Forget No Moon and Flat Calm Bullet Point Soft Edges Erase, Erase, Erase A Time to Reap Hacksilver On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera A Blessing of Unicorns The Red Mother The Part You Throw Away Twin Strangers
  • ''Here Instead of There''

Poetry

Essays

  • "We'll Make Great Pets" in ''Chicks Dig Time Lords''

Reception

Annalee Newitz of io9 wrote that Bear "is famous for combining high-octane military/spy tales with eccentric and subversive subplots".